


Futurewards

by zvi



Series: Directions in Time [2]
Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Character of Color, First Time, M/M, Time Loop, for:fox1013, time-travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-11
Updated: 2009-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:27:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zvi/pseuds/zvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiro sees the future, but does he want to go where it's leading him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Futurewards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amy/gifts).



> [Willow](http://the-willow.insanejournal.com/) said she wanted the flip side of the By the Way. When I asked [Fox](http://fox1013.livejournal.com/) what I should write next for [GYWO](http://community.livejournal.com/getyourwordsout), she picked Heroes from the WIP list. This is it.
> 
> Thanks for encouraging me and liking my fic.

Hiro sneezed and stepped four years into the future.

He did not immediately realize this, as the streets of modern cities look remarkably alike. He saw Ando ahead of him, but turned around facing him. And Ando looked relaxed and happy, as he had not lately, and was looking at someone other than Hiro, as he did very much at the moment.

And then Hiro got a glimpse of the person Ando _was_ watching, and he was Hiro, too, but with longer hair and no glasses, so it must be the future. He took a breath, relaxed, preparing to return to the time he had just left, when future!Hiro reached future!Ando, and they kissed on the mouth, and Hiro heard his own voice saying, "Hello, sweetheart."

And so he paused, and did not go back in time, because he, future!him, had spoken much too loud. Therefore, it was on purpose. Therefore, he should mark the time and date, so he could do it when the time came. If this future came. If he decided he wanted that.

It was a busy street in a major city. (Hiro was not sure where; the signs were all in Latin script, but it wasn't English. He couldn't tell the difference between the other Western languages, they all looked the same.) But he found a newsstand, and saw the date on a paper. And there were enough British magazines that he felt he could ask the vendor the time. He memorized the date and time first, then he put it in his cellphone, and then he put it in his online calendar.

And then he walked around a corner, and four years pastward, into his present.

Hiro looked at Ando after that. He had always looked at Ando. Or, he had looked at Ando as long as he had known him. It seemed as if he had always known Ando, but this was manifestly not so. They had met at work. And Hiro knew very well that Ando had first made overtures of friendship toward him because Ando was one of the few to discover that Hiro Nakamura was actually related to President Nakamura.

But now he looked at Ando differently, looked and wondered if he could _touch_ Ando, if he could kiss him. If he could love him more and better than he loved him now. Strangely, he found that the answer was no. There was no _more_ or _better_ to love Ando. There was simply a new way he might love Ando, if ever Ando wanted that.

And that was the first day, or maybe two, of looking at Ando. After that, he _watched_ Ando, which was different. He watched to see if Ando knew he was gay, or could have sex with men, or was in love with him, Hiro. He knew that things _could_ change between them, knew that, in some way, his knowledge of this potential change must set things in motion. But he had no idea what the next step might be, or when.

It turned out to be pizza in New York. And it turned out he wasn't as ready as he had thought, for Ando to say that he had been with men, for the idle speculation of what Ando might be like to have sex with to turn from something idle to something … probable.

He startled, dropped his food, automatically slowed time down to catch the spill. And there was no reason, really, not to take more time, to be less flustered. He was pretty sure his face was red, knew his eyes were big and hands all fluttery.

So he went home, to Japan, to Disneyland. He could ride Space Mountain all day long, and so he did. He kept coming into the park first thing, for the first ride of the day. He did it thirty times consecutively, until he felt tired from the sitting and the shaking, and his ears hurt from screaming, his and other people's.

So he went to the sushi stall closest to his office, the one where they gave him extra gari without his asking, even now, and walked home, physically, and took a nap. He showered and thought about having breakfast, but, really, there was hot pizza waiting for him in New York. And he missed Ando, crazily, although he had been away from him for, perhaps, twelve hours of subjective time.

He went back to New York, to Ando, and when he was rejected, he felt relief and heartache both. But, again, he stayed with Ando and watched him, for he did not need to think anymore about loving him or how to love him.

He could not help but wonder what was different between the two of them in four years. What might he have said to Ando to seduce him? What might he have changed about himself that Ando came to him? Or would Ando simply find it impossible to find a girlfriend, while they dealt with the issues their powers brought to them, and settle for alternative companionship?

Over the course of a week, he wondered about this less, caught up in their search for another future painter. There had been rumors of prophetic paintings in Australia or New Zealand, so they were strangely isolated, even with Hiro's abilities. He sat in a hotel room, funded by the remnants of the Pinehearst Company, sharing Indian takeaway with Ando. They weren't talking, just eating.

They reached for the naan at the same time, and it was the first time Hiro had touched Ando's skin since that dinner in New York. He'd grabbed a jacket or a shirt sleeve for travel, but the smooth slide of skin on skin was different. He pulled his hand back, and nodded at Ando, and crossed his legs to hide his unexpected erection.

Hiro looked at Ando, who appeared completely unaffected by the casual contact. Hiro's own pulse was racing, his mouth dry, and his stomach had turned. He vaguely remembered this feeling, from adolescence, from the presence of Keiko Watanabe.

He said nothing. He took his naan and slathered it with raita and tore it to little pieces on his plate. And then he smiled at Ando again, and cleaned up after himself, and went to bed. The hotel sheets were cool on his skin, but scratchy. He felt oversensitive to everything. He could smell the curry and the lamb, the cucumber smell that clung to his fingers, and it sickened him.

He waited, and finally, finally Ando went to bed, and his breathing evened out. Hiro put his glasses back on, then slipped on pants and shoes. His pajama shirt would do for this little foray ten years futureward. He blinked, and he was standing in front of the New York Public Library. Someone walked into him, and he turned and saw, unsurprisingly, Ando.

Ando frowned and opened his mouth, then looked again, and said, "Oh, it's you."

Hiro frowned in return. "We are no longer friends? This is only ten years in my future."

Ando laughed, pulled him to one side, out of the path of foot traffic. "Not at all." He smiled and took Hiro's hand. His fingers were dry, grip sure. "Come."

Hiro felt himself _pushed_, not physically, but where he usually leaned timewards or spacewards, something pushed back. He went with it and wound up in a bedroom decorated with framed 9th Wonder comics. "I live here?" he asked, and then he spotted the Kensei sword, hanging on the wall. "I live here."

"We live here," said Ando, and he walked out of the room. Hiro followed him to a small, neat kitchen. Ando gave him a glass of water and a piece of candied ginger. "Being pushed disturbs your stomach. Trust me."

Hiro raised an eyebrow, but drank the water and put the ginger in his mouth, sucking on it. "Do you know why I am here?"

Ando leaned back against the doorway. He looked relaxed, Hiro thought, and comfortable in his body, as if he'd taken up _jujutsu_.

"You want to know if our relationship is romantic. If we're happy that way."

Hiro nodded, hands squeezed. If the answer was no, he thought he might leave right away, go far back in the past and spy on his mother or something. He braced himself.

"It's good between us, Hiro," said Ando. He stepped forward and put his hand on the back of Hiro's neck, tipped them together until they were kissing.

Ando and the ginger tasted good together, sweet and home-y. Hiro realized, unexpectedly, that he knew Ando's scent, that it was familiar to him, despite the different hair and skin products this future!Ando used. "I—."

Ando placed a hand over his mouth. "Don't. Don't give me things that belong to then. Please."

"Okay," said Hiro. He moved to step backward but found instead that Ando was leading them out of the kitchen, back to the bedroom.

"This is mine," said Ando. "This teaching is mine."

Hiro nodded. He anchored himself in this spacetime and then he relaxed his body. "Show me, Ando-_sensei_."

They spent three days together, while Hiro learned Ando's body, learned his own, learned the pleasure they could give one another. It was hard, in one sense, because Ando would not let him talk and would not tell him about anything besides their bodies. He would not even let Hiro read new _manga_ or comics. In another, truer, sense, it was easy, because it was Ando.

On the morning of the fourth day, Ando looked at him and said, "You're ready for me then."

"Ah," said Hiro. "Then, I will…. This works? There's not—."

Ando squeezed his hand. Future!Ando did that when Hiro had done something correctly but should stop now. "Kiss me and go."

Hiro kissed him and felt himself _pushed_ again, this time pastward and southerly. He found himself on a street in Sydney. A blink returned him to his hotel room. He reached in his pocket, and, as he'd half-expected, found ginger. He put it in his mouth and looked for the watch he had left on his bedside table. It was late on the day he had left. If Ando kept to their pattern, he would come back—. Hiro watched the door open and swallowed, tongue suddenly thick in his mouth.

"If you are not going to leap back before I notice you are gone, you could leave a note," said Ando. He sounded tired. There was a little wrinkle between his eyebrows, as if his feet hurt.

Hiro walked over to him, led him further in the room, sat him on the chair and removed his shoes. "I will," he said. He rubbed Ando's feet as future!Ando had shown him and was pleased to see that, after perhaps half an hour, Ando was relaxed and easy.

Ando blinked at him sleepily and said, "Were you gone so long then? You didn't know massage before you left. Or, at least, you never used it with me."

Hiro shrugged and stood up. He went to the bathroom and washed his hands. He looked at himself in the mirror. "This is," he said slowly, "a foregone conclusion."

"Hiro?" asked Ando.

Hiro turned to see Ando standing in the doorway. He'd taken off his jacket, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. The hair was different, there were no wrinkles, but it was enough. Ando looked enough like his future self for Hiro to step forward and kiss him and relax into the familiar mixed taste of ginger and Ando.


End file.
